Henry Cowan, assistant professor of clinical science in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, received a 2024 Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and was chosen to be the Frederick & Alice Coles and Thomas & Nancy Coles Investigator through their Research Partners Program. This program offers donors the opportunity to personally select and support scientists based on various criteria, including illness specialty areas or specific institutions.  

“As Michiganders, we want to support research being done in Michigan,” said donor Thomas Coles. “Research will hopefully help those ill, those who will become ill, and their families.” Coles describes the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation as one of his most important charities as 100% of donations for research go directly to research. He also appreciates that it has a prestigious Scientific Council that selects research by young investigators to be funded, he added.  

This award will fund Dr. Cowan’s research study examining the sense of personal agency in people with schizophrenia — or in other words, do they feel that they are in control of their actions and the outcomes of those actions? 

Cowan will be recruiting people from the mid-Michigan area, including Lansing and Grand Rapids, building connections with the community.  

“When doing research that involves people’s lived experiences and personal perspectives, it’s important to have a strong community connection,” said Dr. Cowan. “I’m trying to reach hard to reach populations and then trying to understand their experiences as people, not just symptoms. I want participants to feel like what we're doing matters, and that their experiences are being heard. It leads to higher-quality data and more consistent participation.” 

Cowan will be conducting this research by using both lab-based measures and life story interviews to best capture real world relevance in people’s lives. In the lab, his team will be working to validate new lab-based measures to assess how accurately participants believe their actions lead to specific outcomes. This new way of testing only requires a web browser rather than specialized software, which could lead to a broader and more diverse population being reached.  

The life story interviews will explore how people with schizophrenia experience personal agency in their everyday lives, such as if people feel able to go to the grocery store and buy groceries. Hearing directly from people with lived experience helps combat the stigma around schizophrenia, added Dr. Cowan.  

 

“The more we can do to help the public understand the experiences of people living with a diagnosis like schizophrenia, the more we can fight against the stigma,” said Dr. Cowan. “We can observe things in the lab about the disease, but what does that actually mean in the lives of the people affected? It’s a powerful way to fight the idea that a person can be reduced down to a label.” 

This story was originally published on the College of Social Science website.